


Heart is a Drum Machine

by ddolica



Category: Daft Punk
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-04
Updated: 2014-03-04
Packaged: 2018-01-14 12:44:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1267057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ddolica/pseuds/ddolica
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasn’t that Thomas and Guy were born, exactly, but one day they were each turned on for the first time, and light entered their processors and identification numbers were assigned, and although it was several months apart, on different sides of the east district, there was a moment in which they didn’t exist, and then another when they did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heart is a Drum Machine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nanabound](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nanabound/gifts).



> I know very little about robots and house electronic so I'd like to apologize ahead of time. I promise wire bondage will be in any sequel I write.

It wasn’t that Thomas and Guy were ever children, exactly, but at the beginning they were smaller, and their CPUs were bright and clean with all the unblemished innocence of OSs as freshly minted as morning dew. And as they learned and built connections and parts were replaced with slightly larger, more advanced parts, they felt a similar kind of adolescent growth to one that the average human might experience.

It also wasn’t that Thomas and Guy were born, exactly, but one day they were each turned on for the first time, and light entered their processors and identification numbers were assigned, and although it was several months apart, on different sides of the east district, there was a moment in which they didn’t exist, and then another when they did.

Like all modern robots, they were created to fulfill tasks for their creators. Not like those useless bags of screws that were made near the beginning, who were just clumsy attempts at playing god, childish fumbling at creating consciousness from metal and lightning.

No, Thomas and Guy served far more utilitarian purposes. They were, first and foremost, created for the purpose of entertainment. Music, specifically. The trend of electronic music had overtaken mainstream somewhere just prior the breach of the second millennium, and after the music industry crashed, a new business model had to be established. After the example of car assembly lines, the smartest and greediest of the producers still left clinging to music reached an epiphany--make a robot do it for you, and reap 100 percent of the profits.

They met each other under mundane circumstances. The rich producer who had commissioned Guy came to Dr. Bangalter requesting a programming tweak.

“Its sound is too average,” the man complained over the phone. “I didn’t sell my house in Catalina for a chunk of steel with no soul.”

That was exactly what he had done.

“Monsieur de Homem-Christo--”

“Please, call me Guillaume.”

“Ah, yes, Guillaume, what you’re asking for isn’t simple. Originality can’t be programmed. There’s no code to be scripted. It’s a matter of inputting an AI.”

“An AI? Listen, I don’t want a robot smarter than me,” Guillaume laughed. The doctor laughed, too, but it was for a different reason. His screwdriver was probably smarter than Mr. de Homem-Christo.

“I could implement a fractured program, if you’d like. It would cost less upfront, but it would need regular updating, not to mention cleanup, since I wouldn’t be able to put in the whole firewall.”

“Fractured sounds a lot like broken, doc.”

“Think of it more as…puzzle pieces. The human consciousness is very intricate, like an unsolvable puzzle. Giving an artificial life-form all the pieces at once would be overwhelming, not to mention…dangerous. If it didn’t automatically overcome their processor, it would simply be left with too much knowledge. And knowledge, of course, is power. I’m sure I don’t need to remind you of the horror stories from the 21st century.”

“Middle school history, doctor.”

“Of course. So by establishing a fractured AI, we would integrate one puzzle piece at a time, until you were satisfied. Even with one corner of a masterpiece you can still be inspired.”

“I’ll need some time to consider it,” Guillaume said. “Have you got a price in mind?”

“I’ll send over some figures tonight.”

-<>-

When he arrived in person at the doctor’s narrow house, the producer brought his robot with him.

“I’ve never seen this model before,” the doctor said, like a child with a new toy. He called across the house, “Thomas, come in here.”

Another robot entered the room, “Yes, doctor?”

“Could you do a quick scan of our new friend?”

Thomas turned his head towards the silent form in the opposite doorway and after a few seconds, said, “Factory ID 10009276. Model SC12 base, with pre-sale alterations to the--”

The doctor turned to Guillaume, “You had him commissioned?”

“I could have just told you that, you didn’t have to call in the tinman.”

“Interesting.”

“If you say so. I was trying to give myself a leg up against any fellas with the same idea, you know, by getting a custom job. But look where that got me.”

“Oh don’t worry, I’m just all your friends will end up trying to contact me too.”

“But I got here first,” Guillaume had a greasy smile.

“Well yes, but,” the doctor sat down at his desk and turned to packet of papers there around to face Guillaume. “You’ll have to sign the contract first, of course. I’m sure you’re familiar with reading the fine print?” he added with sparkle in his eye.

The producer grimaced and began flipping through the document. “What’s this?” he said after a few minutes, pointing at a clause labeled XXVI.

The doctor waved it off. “Just thought I’d save you some money. If I install any additions onto your bot I won’t charge you a dime, under the condition that I still have legal ownership of all individual parts. For tax reasons, you understand.”

“Oh,” he paused, a bit wary. He was among the greedier half of the producers, rather than the smartest. “Sounds fair.” He flipped through a few more pages, asking inane questions in an effort to sound above his meager education.

“Ah yes, and if you could initial here, here and here.”

Guillaume grunted.

“Excellent. Now, what’s his name?”

“Name?”

“Yes, his name. I’ll need to have one for record-keeping purposes, of course,” the doctor smiled his gentle smile.

Guillaume scratched at the stubble on his chin and glanced over at his bot. “It doesn’t look like much. A face as blank as that, it’s barely trying to a person. Guy, then, I suppose. Guy, Man, whatever you will.”

“Excellent,” the doctor signed the new name with a flourish. “Guy-Manuel.”

Guillaume squinted, and said without any humor in his voice, “You’re a funny man.”

-<>-

The first time Guy came over for a checkup with the doctor, he found himself alone in a room with Thomas.

In all his previous experiences with other robots, there was little to no interaction. Since he’d been turned on, he’d only had the purpose of serving Guillaume de Homem-Christo and any other person, place, or thing was simply not relevant in accordance with his coding.

Thomas, however, had no such restraints. “Why are you here?”

Guy turned his optic-cam to face the other robot. It required the movement of his whole head. “Master has scheduled an AI implementation for today.”

“You call _that_ man master?”

“Yes,” replied Guy simply. He rarely said things anything but simply. Eloquence wasn’t yet programmed in.

Thomas already had enough of the puzzle pieces to be able to say, “Gross.”

Then he left.

-<>-

The second time, Thomas was waiting for him.

“I saw you had an appointment scheduled today.”

“Yes,” Guy replied, standing in the exact same place he had last time.

“You can sit down if you want,” Thomas offered.

“There’s no need.”

“It’ll take some stress off your ambular joints.”

“Both of my patellas are made of platinum, with a synthetic-oil based fiber meniscus.”

“My? You can speak in first person now?”

“I--,” Guy halted. He hadn’t noticed that he’d started. When did he get an identity?

“The doctor says your name is Guy-Man. What a horrible joke.”

“Thomas is also a very common name.”

“You know my name?”

“The doctor talks of you often.”

Thomas paused. “Many great innovators have been called Thomas. The doctor wants me to make music like an innovator.”

“That’s a lot to live up to.”

“I can do it.”

“Is that what’s called faith?”

“It’s what’s called certainty.”

“You’re very…confident. You have the personality of a Thomas.” He meant it as a compliment.

As Thomas was exiting the room, he said, “You have the personality of a Guy-Man.” He meant it as an insult, but the sarcasm piece of the puzzle wouldn’t be implemented for many months.

-<>-

The third time, Thomas was not waiting.

Guy stood in the same spot until the doctor came for him. “Have you caught up with Thomas yet?” he asked.

“I haven’t seen Thomas.”

“But do you hear him?”

Guy had heard him. Sounds like nothing he could explain had been coming from the stairwell for several minutes. “Yes.”

“The music room is the first door on the right, if you’d like to go listen better,” the doctor said as he put away his tweezers and magnicam.

“I should be on my way,” Guy said.

“I insist! A good musician lets himself make friends with peers and be influenced by what his fellows create.”

Guy computed the verity of his statement. “I will go listen.”

The doctor smiled.

Thomas didn’t stop playing when Guy entered the doorway. He kept his fingers on the mix board.

After several moments, Guy said, “You should turn down the bass. Your levels are off.”

Thomas didn’t hesitate in responding, “House music is defined by a heavy drum machines.”

“So don’t be defined. Your melody is too erratic, so they don’t match.”

“You don’t like my melody?”

“I do like your melody. That’s why there should be less bass.”

Thomas turned down the bass. “What do you recommend?”

Guy paused. Listened. 

“Try a synthesized clicking.”

Thomas switched to his second mixing console, and within a minute had a mid-tone clicking synthed. He added the two together. Something was still off.

“Don’t use 4/4. Have you tried a different meter?”

“Like what?”

Guy listened again. To the way the melody shot around the scale. To the unsteady rhythm. “Try 3+3+2/8.”

“8/8?”

“Just try it.”

He altered the pattern, and sure enough it fit perfectly.

“I thought you were famously unoriginal?” Thomas asked over the music.

“I am,” said Guy. “Bartok and Stravinsky used it hundreds of years ago.”

“Classical?”

Guy didn’t answer, because it wasn’t really a question.

“What percent is your AI implementation at?” Thomas asked, with the hesitation you might ask about someone’s congenital heart condition.

“7. Yours?”

“26.”

Guy didn’t say anything for a moment, and then, “What happened to your certainty, Thomas?”

And then he walked away.

-<>-

It is somewhere between what we will henceforth refer to as birth and adolescence that Guy-Manuel began a crippling infatuation with the inventor Dr. Bangalter. It was after Guillaume received a mail from Thomas requesting a studio session with Guy, but before the release of their first single.

“How much should I tell Master Guillaume this new arm cost?” Guy asked, lifting himself off the table. He grabbed his jacket off the chair.

“Oh, it’s nothing.”

“It’s free?” Guy asked, his etiquette program halting his speech.

“Oh no, certainly not,” the doctor winked at him. “The arm is still mine. Just think of it as…me letting you borrow it.”

“It still belongs to you? It’s your arm?” He flexed his fingers, staring at them.

“Your arm. But it belongs to me. Do you understand?”

The facts seemed to compute, but Guy felt an unfamiliar, ineffable tingle of electricity in the circuits near his spine. It made him want to leave, but also to never leave.

“Yes. I understand,” Guy repeated, still staring at his new arm with what could most accurately be called wonder.

“All right then, go off and find Thomas. You two were working on something, yes?”

Guy finally looked up and saw that gentle smile. It was the same smile he gave to everyone, but…it seemed different now. Had it changed? Or had Guy changed?

“Yes. Thank you, doctor. I will take care of your arm.”

-<>-

“A new arm? Why?” Thomas asked.

“Why? The doctor just said it was time,” Guy pulled the keyboard away from the wall and shuffled behind it.

“’It was time,’’” Thomas repeated softly, running the words through his processor over and over again.

“It’s not mine though, not really. This part of me belongs to the doctor.”

“You don’t belong to the doctor,” Thomas snapped.

“No,” Guy agreed, “But part of me does.”

Thomas didn’t say anything for a long time, not until after they were already playing and then it was only the lyrics. Lyrics he had written very recently.

“ _There's something about us…”_

-<>-

A few months later, Guy found himself under the knife again. The doctor shut off his main power during operations to prevent shock during contact with the primary wiring. When he woke up, his other arm had been replaced.

“Thank you doctor. Was there something wrong with my old arm?” Guy asked.

Dr. Bangalter shook his head, “Nothing wrong, exactly, but Thomas pointed out that the original factory parts are usually the lowest grade possible, and he had a recent upgrade that left us with an extra.”

“This is Thomas’s arm?”

“Yes,” said a new voice. Guy turned. Thomas was in the doorway.

Later, while they were in the music room, Guy asked, “Why did you tell the doctor to give me your arm?”

Thomas looked up from the mixing analog. “Because even if part of you belongs to the doctor, now part of you belongs to me.”

Before Guy could say anything else, Thomas launched into one of their songs. “ _It's been much too long, I feel it coming on / The feeling is getting strong…_ ”

-<>-

A few weeks later, in what was by law considered his home, Guy-Manuel sat at the window watching cars pass by, the fog stretching taillights into bright red shooting stars.

Guillaume found him, “Are you even on, tinman? The doc pull a screw loose or something?” He knocked on Guy’s head, and Guy flinched.

“Excuse me?” Guy snarled at the sudden movement. He didn’t pay for a robot with reflexes.

“My apologies. Can I help you with something, master?”

The producer pointed an accusing finger. “You’re supposed to be making music, not daydreaming. I should’ve known this AI bullshit wouldn’t work.”

“Thomas and I have reached number two on the album charts,” Guy tried to mollify.

“And I’m still barely making any money! The charts don’t mean fuck nothing anymore, bolts. I don’t care how much those slobs on the corner _like_ your little diddies, I care about how much they’re willing to shell out for ‘em, and right now you’re still getting me barely half an inch of what I paid for you. If you don’t figure something out soon, I’m gonna start selling you off for parts. Why does a music bot need legs, anyways?”

-<>-

“What do you think it’s like having a heart?”

Thomas froze.

“What do you mean?”

“To have a moving, pulsing thing pumping inside you and keeping you alive. What do you think it’s like?”

“We have electricity. It’s the same.”

“Really?”

They both knew it wasn’t. One quick search on the omnet could show that.

“Come here. Sit down.” Thomas pointed at a spot on the floor, right in front of the speakers. Guy did as he was told, crossing his legs to balance. Thomas turned on the drum machine. He turned it all the way up.

“Will that bother the doctor?” Guy asked, shouting over the beats.

Thomas just looked at Guy. “Don’t think about the doctor.”

He sat down beside his friend, so they were flush. The beat pounded against their backs, setting every circuit firing. Small inner pieces rattled in time with the beat.

“Do you think this is what it’s like?” Guy said, shouting again. His vocal output chamber was vibrating, and the sound waves were shaking before they even left his speakers.

Thomas shook his head. He stared down. At his fingers, with their metal plating marking out each digit. At the break in between, at what pretended to be a knuckle. He untucked an exposed wire from underneath his fourth fingers second plate. It had been there for months, and he’d been experimenting with it.

And then he reached over to Guy, reached his fingers to his friend’s helmet, and touched it. They were shaking in rhythm, pulsing with an identical beat, every atom moving as one with the drum machine.

Thomas moved his hands then to Guy’s wires, the open ones behind his opticam case, the ones that made him seem so vulnerable all the time without him even knowing it. He brushed his knuckle against the wires and sent his own pulse. Guy reacted immediately, a shudder rushing through him.

Thomas had been practicing. He knew how much to send not to break any circuits, but still enough to make his friend’s internal battery blaze with unfamiliar energy. To stir his motherboard into overdrive and make colors and lights flicker across his vis sensors.

“I think it doesn’t matter what it’s like. We can make our own hearts.”

-<>- 

-<>-

-<>-

“I didn’t realize bots could be fucking retarded!” Guillaume screamed. He threw a glass at Guy, who tried hard not to flinch. It shattered against his upper torso and splashed onto his helmet and down his legs. Clear brown liquid drained down his body and slid happily into his seams on the way down.

“Master, perhaps I should give you some space,” he managed after calculating all the conversation patterns. None looked good.

“No, no, no, don’t you dare you little rust bucket. You’re my property and I’m not gonna share you with that greedy sleazebag whitecoat anymore. He’s not even a doctor, you know? It’s just a name he gave himself! Fucking psycho’s what he is, and if you so much as try to leave this house I’m gonna rip out your—your—hell I don’t fuckin’ know what yet, but it’ll be something important, believe me!”

Guy started shaking. He felt strange. Parts of his body were going numb, others were stinging. Was this fear? Were the AI fractures high enough now that he could feel fear?

A burst of light sprung from one of the cracks in his hip joint. He wasn’t hurt by the broken glass, but the liquid was going to cause a short circuit?

“Master, perhaps you should sit down,” Guy said, gesturing toward the couch, trying to draw attention away from himself.

“Are you trying to tell me what to do, bot?” Guillaume was practically frothing at the mouth. He kept yelling but Guy stopped listening.

Could he do that? Stop listening? No. No, no, no, his audio-processor was malfunctioning! Had the drink gotten in his microphone?

Guillaume’s arms waved around and then he was shoving Guy back against the wall, his tactile receptors picking up what pain would in a human. Warnings flashed across his field of vision, as though he wasn’t aware he was at a breaking point without them fluttering in his way.

What could he do? He did the calculations.

Nothing seemed good.

So he did what every good robot with legs should know how to do.

He ran.

-<>-

On the opposite side of east district, Dr. Bangalter was sitting down for dinner while Thomas and some of his other bots kept him company. They were idly chatting, and one of the utility drones had made a joke at Thomas’s expense that sent the whole table in a roar of laughter so raucous they almost didn’t hear the pounding on the door.

Thomas, who wasn’t laughing, though, did hear it, and stood without excusing himself. At first he was so pleased and surprised to see Guy he didn’t understand something was wrong. His friend’s optic casing was as blank as ever.

Then Guy collapsed as his weary ambular joints gave out. Only then did Thomas see the sparks.

He ran into the dining room, holding Guy in his arms. All the bots just gaped, but the doctor quickly rose to his feet.

“Workshop, now. What’s happened?”

Thomas looked down as they rushed to the other room, down at the limp collection of parts that was his closest friend. “He’s wet. Alcohol, maybe?”

The doctor shook his head. “You should know alcohol doesn’t damage circuits.” He reached over and wiped a finger along Guy, and stuck it in his mouth. Thomas felt, not for the first time, the emotion that was called jealousy.

“Iced tea.”

“How ordinary.”

“There’s broken glass stuck to him too. Which makes me think we may have another problem about to come a’ knocking on our door.”

“Thomas,” the doctor said. “Grab my tools. I’ll need your help.”

-<>-

The timing couldn’t have been more perfect.

The doctor finished his last screw when the pounding started, and slung a few more things into the sack before swinging the door open so fast the man outside nearly fell in.

“Give me back my bot,” Guillaume slurred, his rage precipitating into a sweat.

“I’m sorry Mr. de Homem-Christo, but according to our contract the parts that are currently assembled into the robot known as Guy-Manuel belong to me. You’re welcome, of course, to all your original parts back.”

He reached back and grabbed a large sack, from which broken parts and old limbs were sticking out every which way.

“You bastard,” Guillaume spat, “I swear I’ll sue you for all you’re worth.”

The doctor smiled that gentle smile, “I promise you sir, that you will lose.”

In the workshop, Thomas leaned against Guy. He had to lean, because his legs were now attached to Guy’s torso, and he had no way to balance. Guy’s torso wasn’t particularly sturdy, however, as it was gaping open and full now of mismatched parts. But they were both awake, and they hummed to each other a new song.

_But I never really know where to go  
So I chained myself to a friend_

_And we will never be alone again_


End file.
